PANIC ROOM (2002)

My Score

 Meg Altman is a single mother who is going through a divorce and just moved in separately with her pre teen diabetic daughter Sarah. She has bought a new home in New York which is practically a mansion. For their amusement this mansion has a room called ‘Panic Room’. This room is equipped to keep people safe in the event for an emergency. And when some burglars comes to steal some thing the only safe place Meg and Sarah can find to hide is the panic room. But things start to become quite tense when they realize that what the burglars are looking for is also in the same room. While the bunch of crooks plan on how to get inside the room, Meg and Sarah has to look for a way to get help from the outside world. 

 Panic Room is a very thrilling ride. It takes place 99% inside the mansion and over night. The sequences builds tension minute by minute and every move made by the burglars and the home people becomes tense every time. For the viewer it’s a game of hoping for the best. 

And this packs good performance by Jodie Foster (Meg). When her kid starts to get sick she becomes desperate to find help. And she makes several very risky moves keeping her life on the edge. 

One other major reason for the success of this movie is the cinematography. Especially the sequences which require very dramatic camera movements and long shots combined with CG and moving cameras are done very skillfully. The viewer actually feels how big the house is and how you can really move in and around about it. 

This was directed back in 2002 by David Fincher way before he won the best director award at Golden Globes for ‘Social Network’. And he actually nailed it.

Genre: Thriller

Director: David Fincher

Writer: David Koepp

Stars: Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart and Forest Whitaker